One reason for having the digital transition delay is because apparently 6.5 million homes are not prepared for the digital transition, and they still have the analog "antennae" system. This system takes up way too much bandwidth, so using a digital system will decrease this. The government wants more people to be ready for the transition, so that's why they made the delay. It states in the article that some Republicans in the government are opposed to having the delay because they say that it "would only increase the confusion about the impending transition". Other people say that no matter what youtry to do, like setting the date for the transition, there are always going to be some people that don't understand, and they won't make the date. So why delay it when these people are still not going to pay attention? The consumers that need to switch to digital TV are the people that either have really old TV's or the people that still use antennae. Other than that, everybody else is fine. The thing that is keeping this on hold is the fact that the government's coupon program was working, but then there was a shortage of coupons. These coupons were meant to subsidize the cost of the digital TV box. However, because the government ran out, there are millions of people on the waiting list, holding up the whole transition process. One of the promised benefits of switching to digital TV is improved program quality. Another is that digital broadcasting will allow networks to multicast, which means that they will be able to transmit more than one program stream on a single broadcast signal.
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